Nicolas Sanson (1600-1667) was one of the first and best French cartographers of the seventeenth century and is even called the "Founder of the French School of Geography" (Tooley, 558). He was born in Abbeville and then moved to Paris. Originally a student of ancient history, he created several maps in the pursuit of his history studies. When he moved to Paris, one of these maps was seen by King Louis XIII. The king appointed Sanson "Géographe Ordinaire du Roi" under which position Sanso created many maps and tutored the king in geography. Many of Sanson's maps were published in atlases. His maps were "liberally copied by Dutch, English and German cartographers" even into the eighteenth century. His works include: "Ancient Gaul" (1618, published 1629), "Cartes Générales de Toutes les Parties du Monde" (1658, 1664-16666, 1667, 1670, 1676), "L'Asie" (1652-3), "L'Afrique" (1656) and "Amérique" (1657). During his lifetime, Sanson created nearly 300 maps, some of which were not published until after his death. Two of his maps of North America played a major part in influencing later maps to be made: "Amerique Septentrionale" (1650) and "Le Canada ou Nouvelle France" (1656) which was the first map to show the Great Lakes. After his death, his sons, Adrian and Guillaume, and his grandson, Nicolas, continued the cartography business in partnership with Alexis Hubert Jaillot. Jaillot and Pierre Duval re-engraved many of Sanson's map, spreading his influence beyond his lifetime (Moreland and Bannister, 128; Skelton, 67; Tooley, 558).

William Berry (fl. 1669-1708) was an English bookseller, engraver, globe maker and publisher in London. He wrote a book on astronomy, published in 1669 with Robert Morden. He also helped produce Geographical Playing Cards with Morden in 1676. He is best known for producing large two-sheet maps that used the work of Nicolas Sanson. He also published "Mapp of all the World" (c.a. 1680) and a large road map of England and Wales by Hollar between 1669- and 1676. He was sometimes called the "English Sanson" having published a number of maps, many based on the work of Sanson. His works include: "England" (1671), "Atlas" of Sanson's work (1680-9), Petty's "Ireland" (1689), Gascogne's "Cornwall" (1700) with Thornton and Mount, and "Globe" (1603).

This map was first published in 1680 in Berry's "A Collection of Maps of the World" (McLaughlin and Mayo, 34, entry 74). It was most likely based on Nicolas Sanson's "Amerique Septentrional divisée etc" published in 1676 (Wagner, 317, entry 418). The map displays an unusual projection known as the "Sanson-Flamsteed projection." The map accurately depicts the Gulf of Mexico and the eastern coast of North America but the Great Lakes are not shown well nor is the Mississippi River basin (Ermen, 34, entry 18). This particular map adds the land of "Anian" as well as the "Strait of Anian" to Sanson's original work (McLaughlin and Mayo, 34, entry 74). A similar instance of this map was published in 1692 by Jaillot.

Source(s): Ermen, Eduard Van. "The United States in Old Maps and Prints. Wilmington, DE: Atomium Books, Inc., 1990.

Leighly, John. "California as an Island: An Illustrated Essay." San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1972.